This blog is here to amuse you. There are funny stories, pictures, jokes and news. The content is updated every day. Anyone with a sense of humor should get at least one laugh a day. I try to find the unusual... after all you get the usual from all the other places!

February 24, 2008

Question about Digg and Reddit - Why does Reddit get this site more activity?

This blog is fairly new I admit. However I am not new to the internet. Before Reddit and Digg were even around I was a paying member of Fark. Additionally I am heavily involved with the internet on a daily basis. Since I am trying to be anonymous here I cannot detail some of my past or present experience - however please assume that I am extremely experienced and have been since the early days of AOL dialup. I have run BBS's (for those who are old enough to remember) to very early websites and am currently involved in bigger websites to this day.

First of all I have an excellent opinion of Fark. I stopped being a paying user there because I simply didn't have the time to catch articles as they came out as did the other 100,000 members were posting them. I do believe that they have a superior method of posting stories (moderated selections).

I have also been reading Digg and Reddit for some time and when I started this blog I also started submitting permalinks to both at the same time on each post. What's interesting is that I get about 3 Digg's per post to no points on Reddit at all.

What I have found is that a post on Digg gets me perhaps 1-5 views as opposed to a post on Reddit which gets me hundreds of views regardless of how many points I get. Obviously I am at the point of just submitting the stories to Reddit alone.

Now I understand that both systems are somewhat gamed by the power users. That's obvious and assumed. However why do I get 500 views from Reddit and only a few from Digg when they are posted exactly the same at the same time?

Finally I'd like to make a comment to all of the Fark's Digg's and Reddits out there. It's very very easy to duplicate what you have done. There is software out there and new sites popping up every day. Why do you continue to allow the power user monopoly on front page stories? Someday this will cause users to move to new and better systems. Personally I read all of these sites on a daily basis and even have their RSS feeds on my crackberry. I appreciate the services.

Please know this is just a question and there is no personal animosity to any site. I just want to know the answers to this question.